


The seed is strong

by sternflammenden



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-12
Updated: 2012-02-12
Packaged: 2017-10-31 00:02:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/337672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternflammenden/pseuds/sternflammenden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Lysa Tully had Petyr Baelish's child?  Written for an AU fic contest on LiveJournal's tourneyohand</p>
            </blockquote>





	The seed is strong

Before he leaves the Riverlands, she goes to him one last time. It’s not anything romantic or sweetly tragic, but a frantic coupling that neither of them enjoy. Lysa wishes that they had the leisure of time, so that she could press her body next to his and engrave the feel of it on her memory, giving her something to cling to when she is bartered in marriage to a grey-faced stranger. As it is, they stand in a darkened corner of a rented room, both cloaked, and as he enters her, her thoughts are not on any immediate passion, but on the threatening hypothetical of discovery. Still it is something for her to hold when she is alone, as she knows that she will always be, husband or not. 

Petyr doesn’t speak; he merely looks at her in the shadows, barely able to discern the planes of her face in the gloom, and she knows, although she is loath to admit it, that this suits him. _In the dark, all cats are grey. In the dark, all cats are Cat_ , she thinks then, surprised at her bitter wit, and she smiles ruefully. For his part, Petyr takes it for her usual sad cheer at his presence, and he does not speak as she brushes her lips against his cheek, cold in the cheap room without a fireplace, without a bed, and he merely nods when she whispers her goodbyes. 

When she is safely back in her rooms, Lysa unburdens herself of the wrappings and furs, and takes to her bed, hands cupping her belly, willing something to catch there, to light there, to replace what had been cruelly taken from her. She’s determined that something will come of all of this and hopes that she is right. 

*

She’s wed to an old man with sour breath and cold hands. Although she is not pleased with her father’s choice, he is at least courteous to his young wife in an absent-minded sort of way. They couple every so often, to assure an heir, but he does not mishandle her, treating her with a sort of confused indulgence. Most of her days are spent in solitude, which she fills by sequestering herself in her chambers, thinking on the last time that she saw Petyr, and praying with all of her might that their rushed union might bear some precious fruit. She keeps the Mother’s face in the forefront of her thoughts as she mindlessly organizes the household, chooses her gowns, pretends to listen to Jon Arryn’s meager conversation at day’s end, over a mediocre meal that she forces down in the hopes that it will nourish something beyond herself. 

When her moonblood stops, she holds her breath, hardly daring to hope that her half-congealed plan has been a success, but when month follows month, and her waist begins to thicken, Lysa cannot deny the truth and tells Jon Arryn, almost breathlessly, one evening after dinner, that she is with child. 

*

Nine months later the boy is born, smallish, silent, with blue eyes that will, as he grows, darken into a grey-ish green. Lysa loves him upon first sight, seeing the face of her lover, although it is fading fast from her memory, in the sharp features of her little boy, and she clutches him eagerly to her breast, thanking the gods that something has gone right at last. The babe does not cry; he merely peers curiously at his mother and laughs when she swings him above her head, her muscles weary from the birthing. However she is unable to contain her glee, her triumph. 

*

They try again, she and Jon Arryn, and while their coupling does not please her, the knowledge that she is capable does, until the next child is born dead. And the next a miscarriage. And her disappointments mount until she is sure that _he_ is at fault, and her resentment grows. Her living son, however, is healthy, and while small-framed, is hale and clever, with a curiously piquant mind that both confounds and pleases the Maester. She is sure that he is Petyr’s. 

When Robert comes, wan and sickly, she cares absent-mindedly for him because he is partly of her flesh, but she casts him aside to the wetnurse in favor of her first, her best-loved. They’ve named him Jasper, for Jon’s father, and he is her world, so much so that when her Robert weakens, sickens, she pays little mind. She is too intent on searching her eldest son’s face for echoes of her old lover, her heart quickening when a subtle bent of his mouth, or a gleam in his eye, recalls his father. When Robert dies of a fit, she dons the customary black, but as she clutches his brother’s hand during the interment, she only feels relief that this child was spared. 

*

When Petyr comes to the Eyrie with his bastard daughter, Lysa and Jasper sup with them. Their lives are solitary, so entwined with each other that they do not know how, almost, to respond to outsiders, although they are both secretly glad of the company, for different reasons. Lysa is ecstatic, reunited with her Petyr again, and as they talk vaguely of the old days, she vows that she will have him again, but this time, he will be entirely hers. As for Jasper, he is shy yet courteous to Alayne Stone. She is quiet and composed, and there is something distantly beautiful, almost unreachable in the contours of her face. He thinks (secretly though, feeling almost disloyal to Mother), that one day he will somehow breach it. 

Petyr studies the boy, a knowing expression on his face, and the faintest hint of a smile curls his lip as his eyes meet Lysa’s. When the children have been sent to bed, he tentatively edges closer to her, bit by bit, inch by inch. When at last they are too near for propriety, he leans in and whispers, so that only she can hear: 

“I see that the seed is strong.”

When she pulls back, the impact from the implication writ large on her open features, he laughs, and although it is not unkind, Lysa feels a chill. However, she suppresses it as Petyr takes her hand and kisses it, lips doing nothing more than brushing the rings that cluster on her thickened fingers, and when he brushes those lips against her powdered cheek, Lysa smiles, vindicated at last.


End file.
